Rafael Benitez must leave Chelsea if storm clouds gathering over Stamford Bridge are to be dispersed

Rafael Benítez had faced a barrage of questions inside the Riverside but he
still had one more to answer outside. “Have you been sacked, Rafa?” asked a
cheeky young Middlesbrough fan. Benítez just laughed and walked on by,
shielded as usual by his own unshakeable self-belief.

He was answering more questions on Thursday afternoon in an interview with the BBC, slightly tempering his previously cantankerous views of the Chelsea board. Benítez fronts up to another interrogation on Friday, talking at Cobham in advance of Saturday’s Premier League game with West Brom. Benítez does not hide. He is convinced he has all the answers.

He points out he is a brilliant manager. He has a website listing all the trophies he has won, a project of the vanity variety, but for some instructive discourses on coaching. His criticism of Chelsea on Wednesday followed a similar theme to his nitpicking at Inter Milan during the latter part of his time there, particularly issues with the board. It is never his fault.

Skilled at assessing and proclaiming the weaknesses of others, Benítez needs to scrutinise himself. Somewhere within this complicated character there is still a very good manager, a version of his pre-2009 glory days. We know Benítez can set teams up cleverly for big games. His attention to detail is legendary. But his stock has dropped and will continue to fall unless he addresses some of his own flaws.

Benítez would challenge the most qualified of Harley Street psychiatrists. Those who know him well speak of the many layers of his personality. Maybe two Rafas exist: warm and cold. True compassion drives his donations to charities, his financial and emotional support for the families of the Hillsborough disaster. He is fascinating, entertaining company, provided the bulk of the conversation revolves around his achievements.

The Spaniard won Chelsea many friends at the Fifa Club World Cup with his charm, although whether he was promoting himself or the club was unclear. One evening, a group of us were chatting to Benítez in a narrow corridor at the Yokohama International Stadium when he spotted a cleaner attempting to squeeze past. He made us all budge up to allow gangway. It was a common courtesy, but remember this is football where arrogance inhabits bloodstreams. Then there is also the coldness emanating from Benítez, as former players will attest.

It would not be the most time-consuming of exercises to select a decent all-star XI of players Benítez has fallen out with. There might even be a necessity to line them up 3-5-2 to accommodate all the centre-halves. He does not mix much with Premier League managers, perhaps suspecting that some form a coterie dancing to the bagpipes of Sir Alex Ferguson, his bête noire.

Benítez always gives the impression that he believes he still numbers among the masters of the managerial universe. Despite the problems at Inter. Despite the year in the wilderness, working on his website. Despite his Chelsea travails.

Look around, Rafa. Accomplished managers are dotted everywhere from Madrid to Malaga and Manchester, from Swansea to London, Liverpool to Dortmund, even strolling on sabbatical through Central Park.

It needs placing on record that Benítez has contributed some positive things at the Bridge, such as backing Victor Moses to be that right-sided attacker, using David Luiz more in midfield and showing belief in the teenaged Nathan Ake. In the busy debit column, Oscar clearly craves more action, Demba Ba has been on the bench too often for fans’ liking while the man who helped inspire Fernando Torres at Liverpool cannot work that motivational magic a second time.

Yet in Rafa’s world others are culpable. Like the board: it should not have called him “interim” despite his agent agreeing to it, despite the “caretaker” tag hardly inhibiting Roberto Di Matteo. Like the supporters: they are responsible for engendering the atmosphere of negativity around the team.

Benítez argues that fans have gone too far in their protests against him. Many observers agree. Yet in an era when supporters are often accused of being fickle, Chelsea’s dissenters have proved the opposite. The antithesis of “plastic” fans, they have stuck rigidly and vocally to a point of principle. They did not want Benítez.

Manchester United fans currently pouring scorn on the Shed and Matthew Harding Upper and Lower should consider how splenetic their reaction would be if the Glazers (in a moment of madness) appointed Benítez as Ferguson’s successor. (The fuss about “fans waving their plastic flags” is slightly misguided. Real Madrid often hand out thousands of them for their bigger games and nobody would ever accuse Bernabéu regulars of lacking passion or heritage.)

A fractured club, Chelsea need reuniting, beginning with better lines of communication between board and support to prevent such avoidable disasters as Benitez’s appointment.

Storm clouds can be dispersed. A strong future spine can be created from the likes of Courtois, Cahill, Luiz, Ake, Chalobah, Oscar, Mata, Moses and Lukaku when the Cech-Terry-Cole-Lampard generation moves on. Benítez needs to go first. Otherwise the questions will harden.